Lily Gladstone left the Oscars empty-handed. But her former Mountlake Terrace classmates say it's just the beginning

It wasn’t quite the Hollywood happy ending Lily Gladstone’s former teachers and classmates were hoping for when they packed into the auditorium of Mountlake Terrace High School to watch the 96th Academy Awards ceremony.

There was a lot of anticipation that film star Lily Gladstone, an alumna of the high school, would walk away with the "Best Actress in a Leading Role" for her role in the crime drama "Killers of the Flower Moon."

The tension in the room peaked as more than a thousand miles away in Los Angeles, actress Michelle Yeoh opened a golden envelope and announced Emma Stone as the winner.

Groans of disappointment rippled through the Mountlake Terrace crowd.

"Yeah, it sucks," said Josh Ryder, a former classmate of Gladstone's. "That’s just a sign that I think we care. Like, it doesn’t go your way, but it’s okay to feel disappointed or hurt because that means you love something. And we love Lily."

Ryder and Gladstone were both voted "Most Likely to Win an Oscar" by their classmates when they graduated in 2004.

Although Gladstone didn't walk away with a coveted golden statue this time, Ryder said there was plenty to celebrate.

"Lily got to be in a huge movie in just a tremendous role. Locally, we got to bring a lot of the drama family back together."

Past and present Mountlake Terrace drama club members posed with a cutout of Gladstone on a faux runway reminiscent of the glitzy red carpet celebrities walk down ahead of the Oscars ceremony. The watch party doubled as a fundraiser for the school's drama club, the budget for which was slashed in half in the last year, with more cuts potentially on the horizon.

Lily McKnight, the current drama club president at Mountlake Terrace, hopes the buzz around Gladstone's nomination gets more people to care about arts programs within the Edmonds School District.

"We've been noticing less and less people are coming to our shows and it's disappointing," McKnight said. "Lily Gladstone is fantastic, and our teacher taught her. [We] can use this amazing opportunity to have more people get involved in theater and realize that it's something to be taken seriously."

McKnight said she struggles with her mental health and the drama program keeps her coming to school. If the program were to disappear. it would be "devastating," she added.

"If we don't have a theater program, who's going to be the next Lily Gladstone?"